CLNZ/NZSA Research Grants 2017 recipients announced

25 August 2017

Four New Zealand writing projects awarded research grants

Copyright Licensing New Zealand (CLNZ) and the New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) are pleased to announce that Research Grants have been awarded to four New Zealand writers. The judging panel noted that “the successful projects tackle important and interesting topics, and the standard of entries this year was very high.”

Four Open Research Grants of $5,000 each were awarded to James Robins of Auckland, Phil Garnock-Jones of Wellington, Pip Hall from Auckland and Michalia Arathimos currently based in Melbourne.

James Robins project, When We Dead Awake, is a story of the Armenian Genocide and NZ soldiers who witnessed it. “It’s thrilling for a writer to be mining a rich seam of history that has so far remained untapped. In producing this work, I hope to give New Zealand and Australian readers a new way of looking at and understanding the legacy of Anzac, and indeed the legacy of the First World War. I’m endlessly grateful to the New Zealand Society of Authors and Copyright Licensing New Zealand for the opportunity to delve into the historical record more fully."

Retired botany professor Phil Garnock-Jones project Nga Puawai (New Zealand Flowers), is stereoscopic illustrations of New Zealand flowers. “I have been fascinated by flowers since childhood. I vividly remember the first time I saw them through a microscope at university, and later trying to capture their beauty and structure through drawing and photography.” Phil’s research and teaching in plant classification, evolution, naming and identification has often been centred around flowers, their structure and their function. Phil has worked as a botanist in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and as Professor of Plant Science at Victoria University of Wellington. Since retiring from academia in 2009, he has been blogging and photographing wild flowers for this book and for colleagues’ research, and working part time at Te Papa on an identification guide to New Zealand Veronica (hebes and speedwells).

Pip Hall’s project (alongside her husband Peter Meteherangi Tikao Burger), The Last Bastion, is a film script for a movie about Bastion Point in Auckland. Both Pip and Peter have worked in the film and television industry for over twenty years. Pip writes for both stage and screen, is a past recipient of New Zealand's most prestigious playwriting award - the Bruce Mason Award - and has had her plays produced at every main stage in the country as well as over twenty high schools. The Last Bastion is their first writing project together.

Michalia Arathimos project, Boundary Lines – Who do we think we are?, is part memoir, part interview dealing with the uncertain status of Māori and other ‘ethnic’ authors in mainstream New Zealand culture. Michalia is a New Zealand writer currently living in Melbourne and has won the 2016 Sunday Star Times Short Story Prize, and been shortlisted for the Overland Victoria University Short Story Prize for the past two years. She is currently the Fiction Reviewer for Overland Magazine and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her debut novel, Aukati, will be launched by Mākaro Press at the Melbourne Writer’s Festival in September 2017.

CLNZ and the NZSA are delighted to assist New Zealand authors in their research efforts towards their writing projects. Research Grants are funded through the CLNZ Cultural Fund, which derives its revenue from a 2% share of domestic licensing income and from overseas revenue that is non-title specific. The 2017 judging panellists were Chris Else, Susanna Lyle and David Veart.

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